Tuesday, April 03, 2012

A week or so later, I've finally had a chance to take a gander through the Budget 2012 documents. I like to look through the source documents on things like this rather than rely on media and punditry analysis to form my opinions. And having done so, I have to say my conclusion is that Stephen Harper plans to stick around for a little while.

Both the left and the right are angry with him, and they both have cases to make. The right wanted sweeping moves to reform and reduce the size of government now that the Conservatives have an unfettered majority. That's not what they got. And the left, besides being upset that the budget (of course) didn't invest in their priority areas, are upset at the areas Harper did decide to cut.

Majority or minority, Harper has generally struck me as a fairly patient man, and one with a plan. He does share the goal of his fellow right-wing travellers for smaller government (his high spending budgets notwithstanding). His most substantial move in this regard was cutting the GST by two per cent a few years ago, which deprives his (and future) government of billions in revenue, tax increases now being largely politically toxic. He wants a smaller role for government too, he just parts ways with some of the right on the timeline.

He took an incremental approach in the minority era because he didn't want his government to fall. With a majority he now has a blank cheque, and majority tradition is to do all the unpopular stuff in year one and then spend the next three trying to win the people back for re-election. If he implemented the kind of massive sweeping and transformative change that some wanted though, even with three years to soften the blow re-election would be a real challenge.

Instead, as has been his practice, he opted for an incremental approach. But if you look closely, the road to smaller government, less checks and balances to his executive power, and progress on Conservative pet peeves is definitely there, from cuts that will force a radical transformation of the CBC (once it loses Hockey Night in Canada and a big chunk of its ad revenue) to a gutting of environmental review regulations and reductions to funding for Elections Canada, which has sparred with the Conservatives over their violations of election law. Reduced funding to Parliament will also make it harder for MPs to do their basic duty of scrutinizing government legislation.

Call it transformation by stealth but slowly, year by year, he's re-making government in a more conservative mould, while working to make the changes difficult to do and harder to oppose. Massive changes overnight would be a rallying cry that could galvanize public opposition. By moving incrementally, he appears relatively moderate to the public, which is what they want. Of course the opposition is going to scream loudly; they always do. The public just tunes it out without something major to draw their attention.

What this budget shows me is that Harper plans to govern for many years to come. Conservatives can shelve any plans for a leadership race; it looks like he plans to run in 2015. At the very least, he wants to hand a good situation over to his successor.

But I think he plans to continue his agenda of incremental conservatization, year by year, for years to come. Conservatization by stealth. He told us once that when he was finished with Canada, we wouldn't recognize it. The change may not be clear year to year, but by the time he's done it definitely will be.